I was recently reading a piece by a thinker I admire where he talks about how we got to our current wonky time keeping system, including the corrective measure of adding an extra day every for years or so. Hello, leap year! Welcome to 2024.
It has always struck me as the epitome of our society’s obsession with bean counting. If we don’t measure it, it doesn’t exist right? (I don’t believe that, but it seems to be the attitude we as a group take.)
What caught my attention most was a quote from National Geographic, saying that the Roman way of measuring time was so loose, historians aren’t really sure how they counted years.
I don’t know what the Romans did or how they viewed the concept of time, but what strikes me as funny is the idea that a year would be difficult to track if we didn’t have it broken down and categorized to the very second.
The year would still pass as it always has, with spring following winter and each of us progressing through life on our merry way.
The ancient Celts are always the civilization I think of first when it comes to relationship with nature, probably a bias based on my own family heritage. They didn’t have mechanical clocks, and as far as I know, they didn’t break the day down into seconds, but they had a clear understanding of the passage of time through the cycle of the seasons. Each part of the year was marked with festivals and traditions. I don’t know if they numbered the years or if they kept track of their birthdays or how many years exactly they had been alive. My sense is that they didn’t feel there was anything lacking in how they moved through time.
My grandmother lived her life that way. She moved through life governed by the seasons. It’s a luxury most of us have to consciously seek to experience these days.
The hyper fixation on tracking is a mindset we can thank the Industrial Revolution for. It comes down to us today as the need to log into that online meeting within 30 seconds of the start time or we are *late*. If you’re in a profession that bases pay on “billable hours”, you’re well-versed in the importance of tracking time.
It’s soul sucking and seems to me a mark of just how far our culture has drifted away from a meaningful sense of time.
So what is a meaningful sense of time? Time itself is a construct we use to understand our relationship to the seasonal cycles of nature. The carbon cycle happens on a very different time scale than the seasons. In fact, the seasons as we recognize them get their defining characteristics from several different types of cycle interacting. Think: movement of the earth around the sun, progression of the water cycle, the life cycle of plants and animals, etc.
The experience of the cycles of nature is greater than the sum of its parts, and we lose so much when we focus only on the clock or the calendar to track time. The progression of the seasons is far more meaningful, and experiencing them in relationship with nature is more fulfilling (and more fun) than watching the clock.
Nature through the senses
Scent:
The most defining characteristic of our weather the past week has been mud. Even our dogs don’t want to tramp through the mucky mess they themselves churned up in the front yard! The goats are okay with it, though. That odor that accompanies rain on soil after a dry spell is called petrichor, and it’s always a joyful smell.
A couple of cuties ready to go back inside:
Sight:
One of the pleasures of winter is getting to notice the bark on trees. It often disappears into the background when the leaves and flowers steal the show. There are several types of trees that have stunning bark, and it can make for a beautiful display, even in winter. River birch is one of those iconic trees. It’s a relatively short-lived tree (50-75 years), but it can make a lovely display in the garden all year-round.
photo credit: Katja Schulz
Sound:
The cardinals have been out quite a bit in our area, so I went online to find a way to help identify which birds we were hearing. There are a few apps out there, including Merlin Bird ID.
Taste:
With Valentine’s Day coming up, the dominant flavor this week may well be chocolate. Why not? It comes from a plant, so it’s natural, right? Enjoy!
Touch:
Using natural materials inside the house is a great way to keep a sense of contact with nature. A jute rug is one option for that, especially in areas where you don’t need a plush surface.
photo credit: Emily May
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